It has been two weeks since my son was ripped away from me, from family and friends, handcuffed, and deported to a country he doesn’t remember. The past fourteen days have been a roller coaster of emotions and a whirlwind of activities. The tears have dried, but the pain remains.

In the days following my son’s removal our family received overwhelming support from friends and strangers who were shocked and appalled by this injustice. To all who helped — by making phone calls, by donating money, by sharing our story on social media, by offering a kind word or a sympathetic ear — I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reaffirming my faith in humanity. With your help we have raised over $11K to finance Eni’s legal return to the only home he knows.

Support wasn’t unanimous. We heard voices saying that what happened to my family was just, and that physically removing my son (who came to the US legally at the age of 2, who is a taxpayer, a productive member of society, and who has no criminal record) was the right thing to do. These voices are a sad reminder of the divisive times we live in — times in which humanism is replaced with political dogma, and critical thinking is replaced with a bumper sticker slogan.

“You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike.” —Leviticus 24:22

We will continue our legal fight, and I will not rest until my son is back home where he belongs.

I brought my son Eni Entchev from our native Bulgaria to the US in 1993, legally, when he was two years old. After a quarter-century legal ordeal with the US immigration authorities (and tens of thousands of dollars), last Thursday he was deported to Bulgaria — a country he doesn’t remember, and whose language he doesn’t speak, (but where he is “from”).

Where is one from?

While he is foreign-born, my son is American in every conceivable way. He grew up with Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy, and Hey Arnold! He loves McDonald’s. He loves fast cars. He speaks with a New Jersey accent. He loves his American fiancee. He gets passionate about American politics. He pays taxes, salutes the flag, and quotes the Constitution. He never gives up.

He is from America.

The United States is Eni’s home. He has lived here all his conscious life. All his family and friends live in the US — fiancee, mother, father, sister. His job is here. The US is the only home Eni knows. He has no criminal record.

Our struggle continues.

My family’s 25-year-old immigration saga continues. We are pursuing all available legal avenues to bring Eni back home and reunite him with his family. We need help to cover his legal expenses, as well as his living expenses while overseas.

I am not a luddite. Far from it. I store all my data in PostgreSQL, and use PostGIS and QGIS like any self-respecting geohipster. I dabble in Python and JavaScript. I write SQL queries.

But I also live in the real world. I make maps and print them. I export them to PDF. I exchange data with other users and organizations — most of them casual GIS users. And these users (and their applications) only know and understand the shapefile.

Casual GIS users will continue to use the shapefile because it is simple, convenient, and universally supported. It just works. To call for the abolition of the shapefile is akin to calling for the abolition of the .xls(x) format on the grounds that people erroneously use it in lieu of “legitimate” databases. Millions of people.

Let’s be real and call off the shapefile vendetta. There is room (and need) in the geoverse for both PostGIS and shapefile. Why not just buy yourself a “Postgres is my databae” or “I ❤ .SHP” t-shirt to show where you stand? You’ll look hip, whichever you choose.

In the beginning there was Flickr. The year was 2004, and there weren’t too many people online, and Flickr would crash daily around 5pm Pacific, and it was an intimate and beautiful experience.

Then came the trolls, and the marketers, and Yahoo! came knocking, and Yahoo! bought Flickr, and ruined it. And I moved on.

On to Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn, and Google+, and Instagram, and Reddit, and Ello, and Mastodon…

Enough.

Social media has given me countless hours of enjoyment, broadened my horizons, helped me make many new friends. For all this I am grateful. Yet, after thirteen years of very active (excessive, according to family and friends) participation, I am ready to scale back. I am ready to reenter the analog world, eager to rediscover its beauty.

I am not unplugging; email still works on all my devices. But I look forward to spending a lot less time online.